Chapter 45 – The Hidden Hunger
POV: Aric
Morning light filtered weakly through the trees, catching on motes of dust and lingering magic. Aric walked ahead of his father through the quiet valley — though "quiet" felt wrong. He could feel something beneath the calm, a pulse that didn't belong to the earth.
They had left the chamber and the shard behind, but its echo still thrummed in his veins. Ever since touching that alien power, normal mana felt… thin. Weak. Like he'd been drinking river water his whole life, only to taste lightning once and realize how shallow everything else was.
Daren moved with purpose, eyes scanning the treeline. "Stay alert. The system maintains nodes — focal points that channel mana from the living world. If you sense an imbalance, say so."
Aric nodded, focusing his mana sight. At first, he saw nothing unusual — the familiar drift of life energy, plants breathing magic, the steady pulse of the land. But then, a flicker. A point of distortion ahead, faint but rhythmic, like something feeding.
"There," Aric whispered, pointing.
They crept closer until the ground dipped into a small hollow. In the center stood a withered tree, its bark darkened to ash-grey. Around it, three villagers knelt, heads bowed. They were motionless — not in prayer, but in drain.
Threads of pale light bled from their bodies, flowing up the tree like mist drawn into a funnel. The air shimmered around the trunk, forming a faint sigil — geometric, shifting, alive.
"The system's siphoning," Daren murmured. "It calls it 'balancing the world's equilibrium.' Lies. It's feeding itself."
Aric's jaw tightened. "It's taking their mana… and their life?"
"Both," Daren said. "Each cycle, the system draws from the weak to fuel divine stability. This is why mortals stagnate while gods thrive. We are batteries in their grand design."
One of the villagers gasped, body trembling as the last of their light drained away. Their skin dulled, color fading until they collapsed, empty-eyed. The sigil pulsed brighter for a heartbeat, then dimmed again, satisfied.
Aric stepped forward before he could think, fury bubbling in his chest. "We have to stop it."
Daren's hand shot out, stopping him cold. "No. Interference will trigger detection. You'd bring enforcers here within moments."
Aric clenched his fists, mana flaring involuntarily. "Then what's the point of learning all this if we just watch?"
His father's gaze softened, but his voice remained steady. "Knowledge first, Aric. Power second. Recklessness kills faster than the system ever could."
Aric forced himself to breathe, but the sight burned into him — the hollow bodies, the tree that pulsed like a living parasite, the hum of that sigil still whispering at the edge of his mind. For a moment, the shard's echo inside him answered the hum.
It was faint, but unmistakable — the shard recognized the system's pattern.
He felt it pulling, resonating. The forbidden energy inside him stirred, hungry.
"What is that?" Aric whispered.
Daren frowned. "What did you feel?"
"It's… the shard. It reacted. Like it knows this thing."
His father's expression darkened. "That means its origin predates the system — or worse, helped shape it. That relic might hold more than godly residue… it could hold a piece of the Entity's core."
Aric's breath caught. "You mean Aion?"
"The same," Daren said grimly. "And if that's true, then every use of the shard brings you closer to the system's notice."
But Aric barely heard him. His mind spun with revelation — the gods' control, the parasitic tree, the faint pulse of power that responded to him. For the first time, the system wasn't an abstract idea. It was alive. It was hungry.
And now, it had noticed him.
As they turned to leave the hollow, the sigil flared faintly, threads of energy twisting like tendrils reaching toward them. Daren's wards snapped up just in time, severing the link. But Aric felt the pull linger — a whisper in his mind that wasn't his own.
> "Found you."